Sunrise
by madeezinezinc
Summary: This is a story I've started and work on occasionally, whenever I find Carlisle inspiration. I love the ideas of introducing new supes into Twilight, so that's where Kalen comes from... ;)


Bella

1. INTERNS

"I'm going to forgive Aro."

"I figured you would. You were never one for holding grudges."

"Hah. And you would know, wouldn't you?"

"Well, there was your father."

"Bastard," mutters the first speaker under his breath. I can hear it, as can Edward. Dolly, the sixty-something RN, who is walking in front of us, cannot.

"That goddamn sonofabitch!" The second man impersonates the first's voice perfectly, slightly louder than a human whisper.

They both laugh quietly, and then the first one straightens in his chair and looks at the door expectantly, in the same instance that we arrive. His guest, the second speaker, a dark haired man, swivels in his seat to look at us. I gasp silently. He is a vampire.

For the record, I'm a vampire, too. As is Edward, as is Carlisle, the first speaker, the brand new head of neurosurgery at this hospital, Dartmouth Teaching Hospital, in New Hampshire. Carlisle is my father-in-law, Edward's creator.

"Ah, hello." Carlisle smiles pleasantly at Dolly, and then looks questioningly at Edward. When his gaze meets mine, he smiles widely, and jumps out of his seat.

"Carlisle!" I exclaim, playing along, hugging him.

"Bella! I didn't know you were in this program!" He holds me at arm's length as if to get a good look at me. I haven't changed since this morning, when I last saw him. It's a façade. Dolly is surprised that I, a lowly intern, know the oh-so-distinguished head of neuro here. Edward pretends to be distant, not caring whom I know or don't know. Carlisle's visitor however, is not fooled. He is standing just so that I see him when I look in the mirror above Carlisle's office door. He meets my stare in the mirror. The stranger is not hostile, merely curious.

"Dr. Cullen," Dolly nods to him, "these are Edward Masen and Bella… Cullen." Her eyes are wide, looking between my utterly youthful father-in-law and me. I wonder what she's thinking. I look at Edward questioningly – _he _knows what she's thinking.

Carlisle laughs and moves to his right. He plucks a framed photo off the shelf there and holds it out so that Dolly and Edward can see it. It is a family portrait taken a few weeks ago. It is of Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Jasper, me, and mine and Edward's daughter, Renesmee.

"My wife and I with our daughters- and son-in-law. Well, Rose is a _future_ daughter-in-law, but she's been around so long she's already considered a part of the family. And this," he says, pointing to Renesmee, "is-"

"Your daughter?" Edward interrupts her.

"I—yes, my daughter." Carlisle stares at him, and for just a fraction of a millisecond, I see his eye twitch. He doesn't know anything about this either. Dolly doesn't catch this exchange; she's moved to the shelves and is examining Carlisle's collection of family photos. She won't find Edward in any of them.

"Dr. Cullen, you have a lovely family. Just lovely. I see all of these children of yours and their spouses, but Bella, where is your husband?" She turns and faces me.

Great. Friggin' great. I think for a second – military? No, there'd be photos of him in his uniform. Dead? No, still there'd be photos. "He left us. For his high school sweetheart." I say rather stiffly. Edward shakes his head behind Dolly.

"We disinherited him. He completely abandoned Bella here. My wife and I wouldn't have that. We raised him better than that." Carlisle is the perfect picture of embarrassment, anger, and remorse.

Dolly apologizes profusely, "I am so sorry. If I'd had any idea… oh, Leroy and I would've had that boy's ass if he were ours. I think you is a good man, Dr. Cullen, for keepin' Bella here a piece o' your kin."

Carlisle slings his arm around my shoulders and smiles, "I don't know what we'd do without Bella. She keeps the family whole."

Dolly's about to say more, but Carlisle's visitor, forgotten throughout the whole ordeal, clears his throat roughly. "Car, it was good to see you, and put a face to the famous Bella, but I gotta be going." He grins at me and claps Carlisle on his right shoulder.

Dolly eyes him suspiciously. "Dr. David Holmes," he introduces himself, "new head of cardiothoracic surgery."

The elderly nurse blinks. "Oh, well hello there. Dolly. Head of RNs. Training and whatever. Well, it was very nice to meet you. Bye now." She exits quickly with a backward glance.

This leaves four vampires in Carlisle's office. Edward is not particularly happy with two of them, I am wishing I could hide, and Carlisle is staring open-mouthed at Dr. David Holmes, the cardiothoracic surgeon.

Edward says, "Left you?!" at the same time that Carlisle says, "Head of cardio?!" I twist quickly under Carlisle's arm to look at his visitor. Edward, seething, also turns to look at Holmes.

"Hello there, sweetheart," Holmes smiles warmly at me, "I'm David. I'm an old friend of Carlisle's."

"Cardiothoracic surgery. You." Carlisle says, looking squarely at David.

"Eat your heart out." David grins widely at Carlisle. "You took Neuro, so I thought I should catch up with the latest in heart surgery. Haven't performed anything in the circulatory system since 1990." He chuckles and turns to Edward. He offers his hand. "I've heard a great deal about you Edward, but we've never met."

"I've not heard much about _you,_ actually. Why is that, do you think?"

"Oh, probably because Car's afraid of some of the stories I could tell you."

Edward's brow furrows, "Stories?"

Suddenly, David has an old-world English accent, "Yes mate, the stories. Nearly four hundred years that I've know Carlisle and you think I've not picked up a few stories?" He laughs and the sound is fascinating. It's musical and rich and I want to laugh with him.

Carlisle hangs his head, but he's smiling. "What've I done?" He asks.

"Four hundred?" I ask, "But then…"

"We grew up together." David says cheerily.

"In London? In the 1640s?" Edward questions.

There is a knock at the door. Esme enters with Alice and Renesmee. Renesmee launches herself into my arms and Edward kisses her forehead. Esme kisses me on the cheek and squeezes Edward's hand before kissing Carlisle in greeting. Alice hugs David and sits down in one of the chairs in front of Carlisle's desk, which Edward, Carlisle, and I are standing against. Still holding Carlisle's right hand, Esme hugs David around the waist and kisses him on both cheeks.

"Wait, hold on," David says, pulling out a sophisticated-looking cell phone, "Sophie-Anne'd kill me if I didn't get a picture of you guys."

Esme tucks herself under Carlisle's other arm and squeezes my right hand with her left. Alice squeezes in between Edward and me; Renesmee grabs her hand and presses it to her face. Edward laughs quietly at what Nessie was showing Alice.

"Three." David says and snaps the picture. He tucks the phone into the back pocket of his jeans.

Alice leans forward and snags Edward's phone from the clip on his belt. She tows Carlisle by the collar of his lab coat over to David and pushes them together. She takes a picture of them together in front of a painting of modern-day London that's hanging on the east wall of Carlisle's office.

Renesmee puts her hot little hand against my cheek. I see an image of her and Esme playing catch this morning – she enjoyed it and wanted to do it again, but with the entire family this time. Next, I see Edward, Emmett, Jasper, and Carlisle doing batting practice with Jacob.

"Are you implying we should play a little ball tonight, Nessie?" I nuzzled her hair.

"Well now that you mention it, Bella, there is a storm coming through…" Alice says innocently, smiling like an angel. We all laugh.

Renesmee laughs with us, but is more focused on David, standing next to Carlisle.

"Excuse me, but who are you, please?" She asks him.

He takes a step forward and bows formally, and with a large sweeping gesture, he introduces himself, "I am Dr. David Addison Holmes, the second. You must be Renesmee."

She giggled at his dramatics. She climbed down from my arms and curtsied to him. "I am Renesmee. Renesmee Carlie Cullen. The only." She reached for his face, "May I?"

David crouched to be closer to her, "Of course, Renesmee Carlie Cullen. Thank you for asking…" And then he stopped talking and stared at each of us in wonder at my beautiful little girl – sorry, _Carlisle and Esme's _little girl. That'll take a bit of getting used to.

_Why is she Carlisle and Esme's daughter now, by the way? _ I thought at Edward, pushing the shield out of my mind. David's eyes shot up to mine immediately. He cocked his head to the side.

"How did you do that?" He asks.

Whoa. He could tell when I pushed out the shield. "Do what?"

"Expose yourself – you're unshielding yourself to communicate with your mate there – how did you do _that_?" He was really intense, leaning forward towards me, with Renesmee's hand still against his face.

"I—I, um, I—" I'm cut off by a swift knock on Carlisle's door. It swings open to expose a man, who is almost as beautiful as the surrounding vampires are. David sweeps Nessie up into his arms and steps promptly to stand beside Esme. It is a line of us, on the rightmost side is David with Renesmee, then Esme, who puts her hand on David's shoulder. Carlisle stands to Esme's left. He puts his hand over hers on David's shoulder. Alice stands between me and Carlisle, my right, his left. She holds a casual stance, leaning back against Carlisle's desk. I am rigid, my eyes flitting between my daughter and this strange creature in the doorway. Edward's fingers are intertwined with mine. His expression is guarded and unyielding. There is nothing lax about him. Even his button down shirt is pressed, with pristine planes.

The door glides shut, almost silently. To anyone but vampires it would be unheard.

"I don't know about _that_, Bella, I can hear just as well as you can." The man answered my thoughts.

I exhaled through my teeth, making the breath come out as an involuntary hiss. The man chuckles darkly, eyeing me, looking me up and down. I return the favor. He is not tall. Maybe 5'10". Muscular, but not buff. His hair is black, too black almost; it looks as though it has purple in it. Odd. His eyes are also pitch dark, but they too are different from being _just_ black. They have a sort of shimmery aspect to them, sort of like saran wrap covering a black hole. His face is hard planes and a pointed chin. He has no stubble. His lips are full and pinkish red, his teeth are blindingly white against his deep tan. His skin is astounding, because even with the deep tan, it is flawless. My eyes can detect no pores even. _Who is this? What is he? _I think towards anyone.

He chuckles again. He steps forward and nods towards me, shaking his hair into his face, and then he tucks his hair behind his ear and waits for us to notice… he waits for us to notice that his ears are pointed.

2. FAIRYTALES

I couldn't comprehend what he just showed me – us. I'd never fathomed that vampires and werewolves (shapeshifters, whatever) weren't alone on this planet.

"Oh yeah, Bella. There are vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, witches, warlocks, goblins, fairies, you name it, – we got it." He rocked back on his heels.

"Aliens? Bigfoot? Hillary Clinton?"

"Ah, no, to Hillary. As for the other two, if they're real, they ain't supes. I never see them at the meetings." He shrugs and smiles.

"So you would be – you are a… fairy?" Esme asked faintly.

"Yes. I am half fae. My father is a full-blooded fairy, my mother is human. Was human, rather. I am over seven hundred human years old."

Seven hundred years? But I can hear a sort of thrumming. I _think_ it's his heart, it reminds me of Renesmee's rapid pulse. He breathes and there is blood in his veins. I can barely smell it, but it's definitely there.

Carlisle speaks finally, "You say your father is fae, could it be the other way around...? I've heard of this type of circumstance before – half fae, that is, but only the fathers are fae. Never the mothers. Is that…?"

The fairy nods, looking thoughtful. His eyebrows were pulled together, a human couldn't distinguish that he had two. "Yes, it always works like that. Human males cannot impregnate a female fae, of any sort. Fairy, goblin, obviously vampire. Werewolves are a different story. Apparently the offspring wouldn't be a true-blooded, or full-blooded shifter," he makes a disgusted face, twisting his features, "but I wouldn't know for sure. Their kind is notoriously secretive. Almost as much as the two of our races." He laughs, and Carlisle and Esme laugh with him.

Carlisle offers his hand. "I'm Dr. Carlisle Cullen. This is my mate, my wife, Esme. Our… children, my first progeny, Edward, his mate and progeny: his wife Bella, their biological daughter, Renesmee, and this is Alice. She joined our family and has been with us for over half a century."

The fairy takes his hand and squeezes it once; he then bows deeply over their joined hands. "I am Dr. Kalen Warren. I find it very interesting that you consider yourselves… family. And that you, a vampire, would be willing to shake hands with me, a fairy, even though I could kill you quickly, and there'd be nearly nothing your dearest ones could do to fight me off of you."

Carlisle imitates Kalen's bow, and smiles warmly at him. "I'm a very trusting guy."

Kalen studies Carlisle for a half-second, then smiles back at him. "This is not your completed family?" he asks.

Esme steps forward, "No, our _completed_ family is significantly larger than this. We'd be happy to introduce you, if you please."

Kalen hesitates, considering. He looks around at us, Edward, Alice, me, and when his gaze meets Renesmee's, his mind is made. "I would be honored. Perhaps I could bring a friend? Would it put you off any?"

"Not at all," Esme says graciously, "we would be absolutely overjoyed to have company. Tonight?"

Kalen bows to her. "Wonderful. I, ah, already have your address. I fear I was rather curious. I looked up your husband's records here. The nurses here are wonderful about doing favors, if you ask nicely." He winks at Carlisle and grins at Edward and me.

Esme is unfazed. She's seen it all. "Perfect! We'll be absolutely delighted to see you at seven." She turns and opens her arms to Nessie, who jumps into them. Esme kisses Edward and me on the cheek, Carlisle on the mouth and says to us, "Don't be late." She narrows her eyes and pulls Alice out of the room. Fairies for dinner. Yum.

There is silence in the room for a moment. David, whom I have completely forgotten, has moved around to lounge in Carlisle's leather chair behind the massive mahogany desk. "So Kalen, what do you do? Besides charm women with your wonderful women-loving-fairy ways? Like for a living?" He smiles roguishly at Kalen.

"I work over in Peds. Pediatric surgery that is," he adds in Edward's and my direction.

David rolls his eyes. "Gyney squad." He makes a face at Carlisle and grins at me and Edward.


End file.
